[weaksauce]

except the wealth tax is not at anything other that the most ridiculously wealthy people in society. the wealth tax is proposed for precisely the reason that it slows down the growth of the ultra elite ruling class type society in favor of a more equitable one that is, you know, a society. bezoar shouldn’t have billions of dollars and influence society like he does... it’s obscene.

[BurningFrog]

> ...the ultra elite ruling class type society

To me, the ruling class is the Ivy League graduate class. They run and rule this country to their benefit.

The Billionaires have fabulous lives, sure, but I don't think they have much political power at all.

If anything, I see them as one of the few counterweights to the real political power.

[theplague42]

You don't think billionaires have political power? What about the tax breaks states use to entice Amazon to build a new HQ? What about Elon Musk trying to shape public opinion against rail transit?

The US literally just elected a billionaire with no prior political experience to the Presidency four years ago!

[BurningFrog]

What I said is they're far from being a ruling class.

Of course they have some political power.

[logicchains]

>bezoar shouldn’t have billions of dollars and influence society like he does... it’s obscene.

Why not? People voluntarily gave him and his company this money, voluntarily invested in Amazon. What gives you the right to try and take it from him? "Envy makes right" is not the basis for a very good moral system.

[rswail]

What gives society the right to have a progressive tax system that expects those with more to contribute more to the common good? Because there is a general belief that everyone is dependent on the community in which they live and should contribute to it.

Currently, extremely wealthy people get tax breaks for contributing to "charity". The majority do so by creating a Foundation of their own to invest in the charitable causes that they prefer.

However, taxation goes to where the community has decided is needed, hopefully through a form of representative government.

We should not have to rely on Bill Gates deciding to invest in vaccine research to ensure that it occurs. Some of his wealth, now accumulated, should be returning to the common-wealth via taxation.

This ensures that wealth does not accumulate within very small groups of people to the extent that the rest of society does not also share that wealth.

In short, Ayn Rand was wrong.

[B4CKlash]

This is a strange response.

A). The parent doesn't claim morality as the foundation. B). Thriving in a capitalist system is also not a foundation for morality. C). There are no underlying structures that dictate/require the sum total of individual actions have to correspond to societal good (not that i'm aware of). This would be akin to claiming that drug dealers have moral superiority.

What we have here is a version of the tragedy of the commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#:~:text...). Something that benefits the individual on the short term while negatively impacting large swaths of connected infrastructure. In a society where money == votes I can't seen how that's a valid and functioning path forward.

[NovemberWhiskey]

The word "obscene" used that comment literally means "offensive to the prevailing standards of morality", so I think you'll find it does claim morality as its basis.